Other Side of the Aisle
by Elissar
Summary: There are people, real people, amongst the evil that they fight. There is a barrier between those villains and us this story will knock down that wall...these partners have a story that needs to be told. [Suspended]
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story's been swimming around my head for quite some time, and I have just now finally found the opportunity to type it out. Hope you all (all six of you) enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans or anything involved with them, however, I might challenge the legality of that…please don't sue me crazy corporate lawyers.

"Damn," he said with the cruelly un-warming sun beating down above him "it's cold as hell out here!"

"Tell me something…how can it be cold as _hell_?"

"It doesn't mea—don't be an ass."

"Shut up Ariel, the truck is pulling in now." Said a girl with short, light red hair. She was just short of five feet four inches tall. She looked to be about 17 years old, and would appear to the causal passerby as a normal teenager and wholly unremarkable were it not for the sunglasses she had always been seen wearing, concealing her eyes, the red composite armor, and the sword that she held in her left hand. The armor consisted of a Brest and Back plate, a pair of gauntlets and bracers, a plate on top of each thigh, a belt of the same material which held: at least half a doze pouches, several knives, a sheath for her sword, and greaves attached to heavy boots with a two-inch heel; none of which detracted from her impressive form. The black bodysuit, which covered her whole person to the middle of her neck underneath the armor, assisted in this as well.

"You know, Thorn, we're not assaulting Dieppe here. You could leave some of your gear back home."

"What's the point of having toys if I'm not going to use them?"

"You want to have the first got, or shall I?"

"Age before beauty…" she said making a hand gesture from her stance on the edge of the roof for her partner to go first.

"Ladies first, I insist." He said from his own perch, making a low bow and then looking up at her.

"Alright, but don't be angry if I take out the opposition before you've landed."

As she finished speaking Black Thorn raised her arms outwards and fell back off the ledge of the 40 story bank, she began to twist almost as quickly and after a few 360 degree flips and assorted other flashy moves—which were unnecessary but she liked to do it—she straightened out and landed, on her feet, about 15 feet away from one of the—very startled—security guards.

The force from the impact knocked him back and he tripped over the curb, banged his head on a streetlight and knocked himself out.

The other four were slightly more problematic.

The one nearest to his fallen comrade went for his sidearm, he was fast, he managed to pull it almost three inches from the holster before his right forearm was broken by a kick from Black Thorn which elicited a quickly silenced cry of pain when she followed it up with a kick to the chest that sent the guard flying into the side of the truck and putting him out of commission.

A bullet soared past her head and impacted the ground near a woman cowering behind a small tree which gave her very little cover making her cry all the harder.

Her partner, who had landed only moments after her, silenced the user of the offending firearm with a few well-placed blows. A few bullets streaked towards him and he moved his unconscious guard in front of them, he knew the man was wearing a bulletproof vest—he found out when he punched him in the stomach and it didn't quite knock the man out.

The third guard, the only one who had managed to fire off any aimed shots, was close in on fast by Black Thorn. She knocked his gun away and proceeded to punch him several times before putting her leg behind his and the pushing him over onto the ground where he didn't move afterwards.

She turned her back to take care of the last guard when she heard the cocking of a gun quite clearly behind her and she froze, mid stride.

The guard she had put down was not quite as unconscious as she thought.

She knew it, this was it, 'One stupid little mistake and now some damn security guard is going to splatter my brains all over the pavement' She thought.

Just as the guard was about to pull the trigger the unconscious body of his coworker thrown on top of him, putting him out for the remainder of the short fight.

"Thanks."

"It's nothing, really."

The final guard was lying across the driver's seat of the armored car franticly trying to operate the radio.

"**Dispatch! Dispatch! This is Car-7 we are under attack! Repeat, we are under attack! Corner of Maple and—**"

The guard's transmission was cut off as he was dragged out of the cab by his ankles and thrown across the street where he collapsed and lay unconscious.

The car's transmitter crackled in "Car-7. Car-7, come in, this is dispatch, we have your location and backup is now in route. I repeat…" 

"What time?" Black Thorn asked.

"Just hit three minuets."

"Come on, let's grab the shit before the cavalry arrives." Black Thorn said as she walked over to the back doors of the armored car.

"You should be more careful next time." Ariel said as he smashed the lock on the doors in and then opened them.

"Relax, Ariel. There isn't a single bullet out there with my name on it"

"You don't have to worry about the one with your name on it. You've got to worry about the one marked 'To whom it may concern…'"

"Maybe you could wax poetic later, you know, after we're in the clear?" She asked sarcastically as she affixed small electronic discs to the bags inside the armored car.

"Magic runes and speed won't protect you forever," he continued without looking up from his own set of devices to attach "and we've got a great operation going here, I don't want it to all fall to shit because you got a little full of yourself."

She looked up and gave him a cold glare that he ignored. Ariel finished his work and they both stepped out of the armored car.

"Ok," She said as they both took a few steps away from the vehicle "I'm sending it all back in: three…two…one…" Black Thorn hit a button on what looked to be her watch and the bags in the truck faded a little then small bolts of green lightning crackled around them and then there was a flash of white light and the bags had seemingly flashed out of existence.

"How in god's name did we ever work with out these?" Ariel said holding up a disk.

"I don't think we'll ever really remember that." She looked over her shoulder hearing sirens.

"We need to go." She said. Ariel quietly nodded his head in agreement then they both disappeared into the city and back to one of the multitude of _officially_ uninhabited buildings strewn across the city.

Black Thorn walked up to the machine where the bags were sitting on a pad lit from beneath the floor, the same machine that had played a key role in the expedited removal of the target assets.

Ariel lifted one of the bags with great strain and placed it on an empty table. He reached for the zipper on the bag and pulled it open.

He knew exactly what was going to be inside. He knew the exact amount, what shape and size it would be in; he and Black Thorn had planned every detail in advance, and yet the color, and shine of the metal that confronted him awed both he and Black Thorn.

"Wow…"

"Yeah…"

"23 million in…"

---

"…in gold bullion. And in broad fuckin' daylight too. And on a busy thoroughfare no less!" The detective explained the situation to Robin as he walked alongside him.

"Where there any witnesses, detective?"

"No, well, not very good ones anyway. Just one receptionist at the reserve bank where the truck was making its delivery. She—" He was cut short by Robin's hand.

"I'll ask her about it in a little, detective. Now, what about the transport guards, were any of them killed?"

"No. A handful of shell casings were collected but they appear to all be from the guards' weapons. Concussions and some broken bones scattered between them, but over all no serious injury. They're lucky, I've seen heists like this go a lot messier."

"How much time between the first alarm and the thieves' disappearance?" Robin inquired of the detective.

"From the time we got the call on dispatch to the armored car being in sight of the first responders? No more than four minuets." They continued walking towards the armored car.

"Four minuets to move out 3500 pounds of gold."

"I know! That's what got us baffled. It's like they just up and—"

"Disappeared…"

Robin walked back over to where the other Titans were standing, awaiting his orders.

"Alright, there aren't anymore leads for us to follow from here, everyone go back to the Tower for a debriefing. I just have one more thing to do and I'll be right there."

The Titans gave acknowledgement of their understanding and left the crime scene.

"Ok, just relax, your safe now. Please just tell me what you saw."

"I was…I was coming back from my lunch break…" she took a deep breath "I was a little late coming back, and I saw the truck pull up to the curb about a block ahead of me. And I knew that if Mr. Channing knew I had been late he would be really angry with me and would yell at me. So I started running, to get back to my reception desk to check the guards in and when I got to where they were some guy landed on the ground and kicked one of them into the wall I was standing next to. I hid as best I could on the sidewalk, and bullets were flying everywhere, and the thieves beat up all the guards and then it was over and they were gone."

"Did you get a good look at any of the thieves? How many were there? Can you describe them?"

"Uhh—I think one might have been a woman. And some one was wearing red. I don't know how many there were or what they looked like. I wasn't trying to see them."

"It's fine, you've been a big help, thank you." Robin walked over to the R-Cycle, climbed on, and made his way back to the tower.

"And with the nature of the crime, and the similarities between this one and the others, we can be pretty sure it's the same guys."

"How many total?" Raven asked.

"This makes number three."

"So what information do we have on the perpetrators?"

"Well, we are dealing with anywhere between two and five thieves, one possibly female, with unknown ages but estimated to be between 18-35. Were are unaware of their ethnicity, or any general description at all." Robin said from the front of the room where all the other Titans were sitting at a conference table.

"So what **do** we know about them?" Beast Boy asked.

"They like to steal things." Added Cyborg.

"But look at what they steal" said Robin "armored cars, all with millions of dollars worth of gold in them."

"And look at the situation. All taken when they pull up to their destination, all in broad daylight, few witnesses, and a flawless escape, always in under six minuets."

The board on the wall of the room was covered in evidence, newspaper clippings, crime scene photographs and other things the Titans were trying to use to solve the mystery behind the string of heists.

"These guys are skilled, amateur hour is defiantly over."

A/N: On a semi unrelated note: for all of you who caught the new episode of Teen Titans tonight (or really last night, given the time) I'm thinking the whole exchange at the end would go something like this…

"I'll show you guys what in it, you deserve it." Robin opens the case and everyone looks stunned.

"Dude! There's nothing in it!" Beast Boy yells.

"Yeah, what's your point? This is my best case!"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: A great thanks to my reviewers.

Disclaimer: 9 4151520 152314 205514 2092011419

Black Thorn sat on the couch in the modern looking loft that from the outside appeared to be nothing more than the many abandoned warehouses scattered about the city.

The warehouse itself was expansive but one small part had become living section, which had been converted quite skillfully into a modern apartment with every possible amenity as well as an extensively equipped base of operation for a pair of extremely talented "Possession Transfer Specialists."

She sat on the couch with a look of concentration spread across her face. She picked up a white pawn and took a black knight. Her opponent reacted to this move by putting her king in

"Check."

"I've got you this time. I'm finally going to beat you." She said moving her king out of check. Putting her king in check was a desperation move and she knew it.

"We will see…" He said moving his rook to a seemingly useless spot.

Black Thorn picked up a bishop and moved it four squares diagonally to the right.

"Check." She said crossing her arms and then sitting back with a contented and almost victorious smirk. She lifted her glass off the table, brought it to her lips and took a drink.

"Yeah, I've got you."

Ariel sat almost perfectly still in his seat, on arm propped up on his knee and his head resting on his palm—thinking, in much the same position as the famous statue—silently pondering his situation. After several long moments of this he gently slid his remaining knight to his left and took the bishop.

"Checkmate." He seemed to remark almost casually.

Black Thorn balked and nearly chocked as she coughed up what she had been drinking, and, setting down the glass hard, bent close over the board to study it.

"No way!" She cried, and, falling back onto the couch sighed "aww man…" with a defeated, disheartened, look on her face.

"I really thought I had you this time!" She whined.

"Don't be discouraged, I mean…86 is a long slump but the law of averages is really on your side now." Ariel offered in a deadpan manner that quickly broke down into an ill concealed smirk, which in turn deteriorated into full-fledged laughter.

Black Thorn became visibly displeased and let him know with a deadly glare that he could see despite her sunglasses. It only made him laugh harder.

After a few more moments his laugher dried up and he became very sober.

Ariel stood up; he seemed to tower over Black Thorn even though he was only 5'10" and therefore not a great deal taller than her.

"Come on, Thorn. We've got a tough job tomorrow. We should get some sleep." He put out a hand to help her up off the couch that she took.

Turning from her he walked away towards his bedroom "G'night." He called waving his had above his head.

"Night." She said and as soon as she had picked her sword up from its position lying next to the couch she did an about-face and headed for her own room.

'Damn his smug, smart-ass attitude!' She thought as she closed the door to his room.

Black Thorn detached her sword from her belt and set it next to her bed, leaning on a nightstand. She then unbuckled the belt around her waist and placed it around a mannequin. She undid the straps on her bracers and gauntlets, after removing her gloves, and did like wise. She repeated the process with her chest and leg armor before sitting down to remove her boots. The rap-around sunglasses remained on, she took them off only when absolutely necessary or completely unavoidable.

'Well, I guess he's always been like that. For at least as long as I've known him anyway.' She continued her train of thought as she turned the handle on the hot water control for the shower.

After a few moments steam began to flow, visibly, through the air, filling the large bathroom. She stepped under the hot spray of the showerhead, and then adjusted it slightly.

'God, I threw my lot in with him almost—'

Five years ago 

**Metropolis, 11:06pm**

"Now remember; you do exactly as I say, when I say, and Jessica will be delivered to our agreed upon meeting place safe, and sound." Came a voice over the radio-earpiece Black Thorn was wearing.

"I've got what you asked for, I'll get this too, but if you so much as _touch_ a hair on her head…I will make sure you suffer, to you last breath." She responded icily from her perch across the street from a large museum.

Contained within the expansive complex, under heavy guard, sat the world's largest ruby, the _Tear of the Sun_ stone, 47 carats. That was the target that she had to obtain, at any cost, for her sister.

"Your window is opening in 30 seconds, it will only be open for one minute, the radio signal will cut off, you figure out how to get by the security, I imagine you're quite good at that by now."

She cringed at the thought of what he had had to do to keep this man from killing her sister, she had been made to break almost every law, he had even forced her to kill someone.

"How do I get out?" She asked through gritted teeth.

"You're on your own there." He chuckled but the was no humor in his voice.

Black Thorn quickly went over to the rope she had off the side of the building and repelled down. She made he way, in darkness, over the gate and to the wall where the offices were. She checked the window and found it unlocked.

"At least there are some lazy security guards out there…"she whispered.

She climbed through the window and then closed it behind her. Then crept quickly through the darkened offices toward the museum floor and her target.

She didn't have a hard time finding which way she should go to get to the Ruby; it was the museum's largest, most famous exhibit, containing hundreds upon hundreds of famous, and valuable jewels of all kinds. All with the _Tear of the Sun_ at its center, quite literately the crowning jewel of the display.

It was not an easy thing to miss.

She stopped at the huge doorframe leading into the main gallery. 'This is where the hard security starts' She thought. Black Thorn produced a small aerosol bottle filled with water and began to spray the light mist into the air in front of her.

Red beams of light appeared, crisscrossing the way before her, blocking her path almost entirely.

"Ok, harder than I thought."

She pulled a pair of sunglasses out a pocket, which she had on her combat vest. She was wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt under the vest, tight black pants, and pair of black leather boots. Her hair was longer and mostly pulled back in a ponytail.

She put them on and saw every laser in the room. They were specially made to pick up infrared light and make it visible, not your everyday sunglasses. _He_ had supplied them to her, along with a few other things when he left the note telling her he had taken Jessica hostage and what instructions to follow.

She filled with anger as she thought of him 'I'm going to make him pay, he better pray to god that he didn't do anything to her.' She calmed herself down quickly; she had a deadline she couldn't miss.

Black Thorn observed the movements of the lasers for a few moments 'they just had to move, didn't they?' She copied the patter down in her mind, it had 37 different movements per cycle, but it was a gift.

The activation switch on the far side of the hall was her target, she needed to get over to it and shut the system down. She figured it would take her about three cycles, or one minuet. She took a few steps back to get a running start.

60 seconds and some extremely skillful moves later she punched the button controlling the laser grid and it powered down. She gave the room one last look and then took the glasses off, but to be safe the she checked with the aerosol one more time to make sure there was no backup system. She stealthily began to creep over to the glass case on the pedestal that held the ruby; there was a large beam of light coming in from the skylight, down and around the pedestal reaching some ten feet wide.

Once Black Thorn reached the moonlit heart of the room she stood up fully, and confidently walked to the pedestal. She knew there were no laser alarms around this, 'so what could it be?' She considered the case for a moment, then checked her watch

"Shit, only 22 minuets!" She said in and exclaimed whisper.

'The glass doesn't look held down in anyway, and it's on a reflective metal plate…' she scratched her head and then snapped her gloved fingers 'a pressure sensor!'

"Hmm, well, I have no way to weigh the glass or the ruby, how I going to trick this thing?" She pondered this for a few seconds but a shadow crossing her face broke her concentration, she ignored it but she had an idea.

Black Thorn took out of her pocket what appeared to be a laser pointer. But she pointed it at the base of the spindly pedestal and pressed the button. A thick beam of green light began to quickly slice its way through the base and after a no more than three seconds the base was almost completely gone. Black Thorn had anticipated this however, and put a small plastic block in place of the burned away pedestal, steadying it.

She stood up with a slight smile on her face only to have a kick land in her chest, sending her flying to the ground some feet away.

She got to her knees coughing. "Hey! What the hell?" She looked over to the case and saw a person in shadow, hanging from the skylight above, and coming down quickly.

In the light she could see it was a man, a little older than her, with dark blonde hair that wasn't very long but appeared completely unkempt; wearing a black ballistic vest over a white T-shirt—both close fitting thus making note of his obvious physical fitness —black pants, and heavy-duty boots. Around his waist was gun belt with a holster on each side—but each attached to his upper thigh, making his draw speed much faster—each with a Colt .45 inside. And several extra magazines were attached to the belt as well.

"Thanks," he said back with out looking at her as he slowly picked up the ruby "I was going to have to do all that stuff but you took care of it…" Black Thorn was back on her feet and walking over to the man with a murderous look on her face.

"I _need _that."

"And the cutting the base of the pedestal out! Brilliant, truly remarkable." He continued, seemingly unable or unwilling to hear her.

"I'm not messing around with you buddy, I _need _that **now**." She was only a few feet away from him but had stopped. She took another step forward and without her even seeing the movement his left hand had drawn one of his .45s and had pushed the muzzle to her forehead.

She stopped walking forward.

"I would stop…" he said, still not looking at her, he was wearing gloves and was carefully picking up the glass with one hand.

"Please…I need that ruby." She pleaded 'this guy's too fast, I underestimated him, I have to talk it out of him…'

"Why should I give it to you? It's always about who gets their hands on it first, not who did the most work…not that I couldn't have done all that." He added after a second's hesitation.

She decided the best story was the truth "Because some crazy kidnapper has my older sister Jessica, if I don't steal this ruby for him, he will kill her!" She cried desperately.

"Why would some guy want a_ kid_ to steal something this well guarded?" He inquired setting aside the glass.

"I have…talents…as you can see, how else would I have gotten this far! Please, I only have 19 minuets to get it to him!"

"Alright, I believe you." He stated, and in flash his gun was away and he turned to face her.

"You, you do?"

"I know when people are lying…it's a gift." He said with a wink. Then with a smile he stepped aside with his arm sweeping, outstretched.

"Thank you." She said, and while eying him closely she picked up the rub off the pedestal, opened a small satchel she had with her and placed it inside.

She turned from him, his arms crossed, looking at her, and ran down the halls; back the way she came and out onto the grounds. She took a look at her watch.

"15 minuets, shit."

"Such language…" Mockingly chided the icy voice of her 'employer' as he liked to refer to himself as.

"I've got it." She said with barely disguised hatred.

"The roof of the Gavin building…" He commanded.

"But that's damn near two miles away!" She screamed.

"You have," there was a pause, like he was looking at his watch "14 minuets, I'd get moving." His voice dripped with malice.

Black Thorn began to run as fast as she could, she scaled the ten-foot tall fence in record time and was running full tilt down West Avenue towards the Gavin building.

She ran as fast as she could she thought about the time limit she had to beat, when she got too tired she thought about her sister, and she increased her speed; her eyes watered, her throat and mouth were dry as sand, her lungs burned, her heart felt on the verge of bursting, and she ran faster still. She ran so fast her legs were numb, her feet bloody, her mussels shredding.

The glass of the front door shattered under her impact and she collapsed into the waiting express elevator only a few feet from the door in the empty lobby. She weakly raised her arm from her position sprawled across the floor of the elevator, and checked her watch '1 minuet 38 seconds. I made it, oh god, I made it. Hold on Jessie, I'm comin' …'

She caught her breath and righted herself moments before the elevator came to a halt on the 50th floor, the roof. She stepped out into the cool air, with the wind now blowing furiously, her hair being tossed about violently, the ponytail having come undone in her race to the building.

There, across the rooftop stood two people, one in shadow, the other, in front of him, shorter, smaller; bound and gagged.

"Jessica!" Black Thorn cried and ran forward several yards before he told her to stop.

"I've got it…"she began to reach into her bag and then pulled the stone out "here."

"Good girl, I knew you could do it."

"Give me Jessica, then you'll get you stone!" She said through a glare, the hatred and anger in her voice no longer disguised.

"No, the ruby, then the girl."

"Fine," she conceded, and tossed him the ruby, which he caught as it hurtled towards the edge of the building, with extreme skill. "Now give me Jessica."

"Foolish girl." Said the figure in shadow as he stepped away from Jessica and pushed her off the edge of the building.

"JESSIE!"

Simultaneously he threw a knife at Black Thorn's heart but she managed to move a few inches to the right and it impeded itself in her shoulder. He did a graceful back flip off the building as she came running to the edge.

"NO!" She cried as she saw her sister falling, looking up at her, falling into the darkness, down, she could see the fear in her eyes as she fell and was swallowed by the darkness of the river below.

"No, no…" she cried, she couldn't see any longer, tears clouded her eyes. She was suddenly gripped by exhaustion and pain, intense pain. She could feel herself losing coconsciousness, slipping into her own darkness, slipping over the edge to meet the water below.

'Here I come Jessie, I'll see you in a minuet.' She fully blacked out, but felt a strong pull just as she did, being pulled, somewhere.

She awoke in a darkened room, her head pounded, her left shoulder hurt like hell, and she could move a muscle.

She moaned in pain and confusion.

"Oh, you're awake…"

The Present 

She toweled off quickly, got dressed and went to sleep. Her eyes never really dried.

Black Thorn got up early the next morning for the mission and met Ariel in the kitchen.

"Morning" he said, looking up from something he was reading

"Morning" she thought for a moment "hey, remember when we first meet? How did you know I wasn't lying?"

"I didn't." He responded without skipping a beat.

"What? Why'd you help me then?" She demanded, shocked.

"Whether or not you were lying to me didn't matter; you told a good story on the fly if you were, and you were in deep shit otherwise, so I figured 'Why not?'. Besides, I was following you; if you had been lying I would have taken it back. Remember who caught you?"

"Thanks…" She offered him, she had never thought about it before.

"Don't mention it, now, are we going to get moving on this job or what?"

"Oh, but it's Saturday!"

"Come on."

"Fine."

A/N: Next Chapter will be more back story with current story, most likely about half and half.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: No reviews! I am now very sad…I try my best to carry on.

Disclaimer: "I do not own Teen Titans."

"You're lucky this score is worth so damn much, or I never would have gotten up so early on the weekend." Black Thorn said as she hopped over the front counter of the bank.

It was a massive building in the heart of the finical district of the city. It was the national headquarters for this bank, and the largest bank on the west coast took up the first five floors. The grandiose front doors opened into a main hall that contained all the counters, with tellers on three walls and a massive fountain in the middle which reached into the air up to the third floor of the bank, whose ceiling went up the full five. The water sprayed out of the top and cascaded, in a feat of amazing engineering, without losing a drop, down the impressive obelisk into a waiting, ten-foot deep pool at its base.

"Hey, don't complain, you always leave it up to me to find jobs and good targets, if you don't want to get up early, then find some targets you want to hit…" Ariel responded as he leapt over the counter and he and Black Thorn ran down a wide hallway to a very discouraging looking vault.

"Fine, I call the next one." She said, wasting no time as she affixed a white box the size of a pack of cards to each of the three, massive, hinges.

They both ran back a few yards to take cover around a corner. As soon as they were both around it Black Thorn produced a small remote, which looked very much like a devise one has to unlock the doors of a car. She pressed first a gray button that made the green lights on the three small boxes turn red, and then a red button that brought with it a powerful explosion, quickly followed by a loud crashing noise and a small quake in the floor.

Both of them ran around the corner and over the four-foot thick steel door that now lay on the floor discarded and destroyed.

They wasted no time as they both quickly began to affix the familiar discs to the huge pallets of sealed and packaged 100 dollar bills and stacks of government bonds.

After a minute they had marked everything they had come for and stood together in the middle of the vault.

Ariel produced a similar controller to Black Thorn's and pressed one of the buttons. All at once the heavy pallets of cash and bonds disappeared to an unseen location, many miles from the bank.

"How did you say you got these things?" Black Thorn had turned to him to ask her question and now they both had their sides to the door.

"I've got an uncle who works at Area 51, remember?" He responded with no sarcasm in his voice

"Oh yeah." She said, turning to go. Only milliseconds between her words and her motioin a shot rang out and a bullet found its mark; putting a hole through the middle of the right lens of the sunglasses Black Thorn was wearing.

Ariel watched as Black Thorn fell backwards onto the ground, her arms reaching forward as she fell, trying to grab the air. She hit the ground and did not move.

He reacted not by drawing his weapon to slay the shooter but instead flipped a small chunk of concrete into the air off the top of his foot and then with almost inhuman speed and strength spun around, connecting a side-kick with the debris. The newly minted missile sliced through the air towards a security guard who was using the vault door as cover, connecting with the barrel of the .38 Special, ripping it out of the hands of the guard and then connecting it with his forehead.

He turned on his heels to look at where Black Thorn lay unmoving.

"Next time…we check the bathrooms…" Said Black Thorn, still lying on her back.

Ariel had walked over to her and now offered her his hand. She sat up; the sound of a coin hitting the ground was heard as the bullet fell to the marble floor of the vault. She grabbed his hand and he helped her stand.

They were close enough that he had to look down at her and when she looked up their eyes, or rather on each of their eyes, locked together: through the hole in her sunglasses.

He had seen her _new_ eyes only once before, three years ago.

**Three years ago**

Rome, 10:30am 

"Lire 5000 per favore, signora." Said a man from behind the small, beaten up ice-cream cart. He was somewhat on the short side, not much taller than Black Thorn; he had warm, gentle face and a seemingly bottomless well of smiles and a worn leather cap sitting on his head.

"Qui siete signore." Black Thorn responded, holding out her hands: one to take the ice-cream cone and one to pay the man.

"Grazie, sig—." He stopped to look at what she had handed him, a 20000 Lire note. He held out his hand to her, his palm open, thinking she had made a mistake.

"No, no, lo mantenete." She said closing his hand and smiling at him.

"Grazie, signora. Grazie." He said with a smile, pulling back his outstretched hand.

Black Thorn turned around and walked off the curb and headed across the street to a corner and a figure in the shadow of the building, barley visible—even to the constant stream of people mulling about the sidewalks—waiting, licking her vanilla ice-cream and looking quite pleased as she went.

The figure then stepped out of the shadow and began to walk with her down the narrow street.

"Tell me again, where'd you learn Italian?" Ariel her asked as they both strolled along pleasantly.

"My dad." She replied, not taking her eyes off her ice-cream as they walked.

Ariel spoke after a few moments, glancing over at her "No elaboration to that, it just ends there?"

"Yep." She responded without missing a beat.

"Fine, but don't get on some _High Horse_ because you can speak it and I can't."

"Without me you would never have understood any of the information you received from your contact."

"Without me you wouldn't have that information!" He laughed.

"I'm sure I could get your guy to talk to me." She looked over at him and grinned devilishly.

"Really? Remind me, when was it that you learned Mandarin Chinese?" He asked in a sarcastically mocking tone.

She stopped, as did he, and turned towards him, glaring with a murderous look in her eyes. They both began to laugh hysterically. Then, after recovering slightly, they fell into fits of laughter again. Finally Ariel looked at their surroundings and discovered where they were.

"Thorn, do you realize we are only a few blocks away from the Vatican? The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica…" He looked off into the distance, his voice almost seeming to swoon over where they were.

"Let's got. We've got time before we have to do the job…not that you've told me what that job **is**."

"Come on." He said enthusiastically. He grabbed her wrist and began to pull her towards his objective.

"Alright, alright, calm down." She said pulling her arm back from him, neither of them were people who enjoyed being touched by others so she surmised this must be really special for him. She had no problem going to see the famous cathedrals and frescos but she didn't want to scrub the job because they had to go sightseeing all day.

They slowed down from the run to which Ariel had taken to a calmer pace, not wanting to attract undue attention in so densely crowded of an area.

"I guess you're wondering why I am so eager to see this stuff." He said as they walked across the massive courtyard with a throng of tourists and blending right in.

"Just a little curious…"

"When I was a kid, my…uh, parents, took me here. I fell in love with all the wonderful paintings; it made me want to become an artist…" He stared over at the fountain in the middle of the courtyard that they were now passing "ah, the road not traveled." He said, then looked over at Black Thorn and grinned slightly.

"You, a painter? I can't even imagine that!" She said laughing.

"Hey, I was serious, I was taking some small classes, tried my hand at it a bit." He saw her look at him incredulously "I was damn good too. I was going to a world renowned art college, then…" He trailed off, looking down and away from her.

Black Thorn didn't press the matter; neither ever really talked about their pasts', only what little they found out when they met and what slipped out during casually conversation. There was no reason to, their partnership was built on trust, not prior friendship, trust they had built, and made.

Ariel thought about what he had been about to say, Black Thorn seemed to be consume by something as well and they were both silent. They knew so little about each other, he didn't even know her real name, not even her first. But that was all for the best, the less they knew about each other, the less one of them could tell the authorities should they be captured.

They were familiar with one another but they did not really _know_ the other person, much in the same way as a pen pal does not truly _know_ the person he corresponds with.

"So…why don't you paint now?"

"Don't have the free time, I'm doing the only other job I've ever loved."

"That is BS, all you do is lie around!" She said jokingly.

"Yeah, planning all the jobs we've been doing is lying on my ass. You'd have been out of work two years ago if it weren't for me."

"Whatever."

Ariel smiled with his small victory. They both became very quiet. They were nearing the Sistine Chapel's great entrance and silence was beyond golden there, to the tune of uniformed guards standing on either side of the narrow line into the church armed with sub-machineguns.

After only a few minuets wait they were inside the chapel and staring in wonder at the magnificent, and massive frescos on the walls and ceiling, as bright and as vibrant as they were the day they were painted, thanks to the painstaking restoration work they had recently undergone.

Ariel was staring at all the paintings with his mouth agape, just as it had been many years before.

"Amazing…" he whispered almost inaudibly.

"Yeah…" Black Thorn Whispered back but not really paying attention to him. She had seen the painting before, in books and pictures and on TV, but that was nothing compared to how they looked in person, she had an appreciation for the arts, more than most people and more than anyone her age but really this knocked her socks off. She was astonished.

They shuffled through the chapel in complete silence, and reverence, along with the rest of the crowd that was filing slowly past. They both looked at the frescos in wonder until they were finally out of sight as the line drove them through the threshold of the door and out into the warm, midday Italian sun.

"That was…incredible!" Black Thorn exclaimed once they were out of the watchful eyes of the guards who gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'silent as the grave'.

"It is just like I remember. No, better than a memory. But that's not all, we have one more famous building we must see before we leave Rome." He continued, turning his body slightly, lifting his arm, and pointing to St. Peters Basilica.

They entered the cathedral several minuets later and marveled at its size and architecture. As they approached the alter, with a gargantuan crucifix that had a statue of Jesus nailed to it hanging above it, they walked slowly between the two wings of pews. A few yards from the alter rail Ariel dropped to one knee, bowed his head, mumbled something Black Thorn could not understand, and as he began to stand made a movement with his right hand that look like the sign of the cross.

"I didn't take you for a Cathloic." She whispered.

"Look," he said, pointing to the stained glass, the light shifted slightly and the colorful beams of light danced across their path.

"So tell me," she said in a hushed voice, looking over her shoulders and about the cavernous room to see if there was anyone about, and continued when she saw they were in the clear "what is our target, here in Rome, what was it the source gave you that made you want to work in Europe for once?" She had leaned in close to him, now standing only inches away.

"You're standing on it."

A/N: I'm sorry for the cliffhanger, exactly half of you love them and exactly half of you hate them, it couldn't be avoided with the way I want the story to play out. Hope you enjoyed. Please review.

I've realized that someone had to have said this first; we have all been plagiarizing their work by not using quotes!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Remember, this is still the back-story; this chapter will end this one and get back to the present.

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

Black Thorn stared at Ariel in confusion. He was smirking at her, a devious gleam in his eye.

"We're gonna steal a gargantuan building?" She asked sarcastically, waving her arm around in a gesture to indicate it and then placing her hands on her hips.

"No," he said, chuckling, "think about it. Before it became a huge tourist attraction, the Vatican was a fortress designed to protect the church and its assets." He continued after leaning against a pew.

"Fortresses have more than just surface structures to keep secure what they're guarding…" She said, seeing where he was going. "Places like tunnels and vaults in which these articles are kept."

"And the Vatican has some of the most tunnels, catacombs, crypts, vaults, secret passageways, dusty corridors, cobwebbed corners, and poorly lit rooms in the world…"

"A perfect place to _find_ some obscure and valuable items in some of the forgotten places in the darkness."

"You got it." He said, pointing his finger at her.

The sound of footsteps and muffled voices signaled to them that their time without prying eyes or overhearing ears was over. The got up to leave, making their way past the group of German college students, all speaking in hushed voices but still having a rather lively conversation.

The stepped back out into the sunlight and Ariel began to walk back towards the main entrance.

"So, what exactly are we going for here?" She asked him, quickening her pace to get alongside.

"We'll go back to the hotel, get ready, and I'll tell you all about it." He responded as they both melted into the churning crowd.

After a few more minuets of walking at a casual distance apart and several on a bus in different seats they were outside the hotel doors. They entered separately, with about five minuets between them, so as to attract as little attention to themselves as they could.

Black Thorn had entered first; therefore Ariel was waiting outside, in the day that was quickly changing form sunny and pleasant to overcast and what looked like it could be rain. The humidity was already at a noticeable level and was now markedly rising. He looked up towards the rapidly darkening heavens not with out a dearth of clouds; then, after checking his watch, walked inside.

The doorman pulled aside his ward and greeted him, to which he smiled politely and gave a small wave of his hand. The lobby was mildly busy with just the everyday workings of a hotel: guests and patrons checking in and out, the lounge bar filled with a mixed and mingling crowd who knew it was midnight somewhere, along with an acrid layer of smoke from assorted cigars, pipes, and cigarettes; bellboys running to and fro, carrying bags, pushing carts, and delivering messages.

He walked up to the concierge behind the front desk.

"Good evening, Mr. Chance." The man behind the desk said. Ariel motioned for him to lean in then whispered something to him, then handed him a note and walked towards the elevator.

As he stood inside the elevator he took disinterested notice of the other man in the elevator—early middle aged, thin, with thick black hair combed over, a pair of black metal-framed glasses resting on his nose and a business suit. The man looked over at Ariel and smiled pleasantly, then readjusted his view to the reflective door.

The elevator stopped at the sixth floor, there was a ding, and the doors slid open.

The doors closed and Ariel was now alone in the elevator, with the smooth, low music, playing in the background. He put his hands behind his back, and waited for the elevator to hit his floor. With a recognizable ding, the elevator door slid aside to reveal an immaculate hallway into which he stepped, turning left and glancing at the door on the right side until he spotted his room number.

He pulled out his card, scanned it through the lock and pushed the door open.

Ariel walked over to the left side of his room, with the door at his back, unlocked, then opened a door in the wall, and knocked on the door adjoining the room next to his, moments later a latch was heard being undone and the door swung backwards to reveal his—quite literal—partner-in-crime.

"Now I need to know…what, exactly, are you planning to steal from the _Vatican_?" Black Thorn asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Ah, well, you're making it sound hard." He said grinning as he sat on the corner of her bed.

"I'm serious, we didn't just come to Rome for a vacation; we've got to pay the bills…" She managed to get out before losing control of her laughter.

"You never were a good liar…" He said, resting his chin on his palm.

"Come on, damnit!" She was beginning to get frustrated.

"Alright, but I need something first…" He got up and walked back into his room, disappearing for a minuet while the sounds of rummaging could be heard coming from inside.

He reappeared with a large, rolled-up piece of paper and a thin black laptop. He set the laptop on the bed, opened it up and turned it on.

"Ok," he was now pointing at a floor schematic of what appeared to be the deepest catacombs "this is where it is, it has a relatively light guard, considering what it is-"

"Where'd you get the floor plans? Why would it have floor plans, it was built hundreds of years before modern architecture." She interrupted him.

"During World War II, the church didn't know if Germans, or the Italians might try to destroy them, the had to make modifications and expansions to make this place safer and more secure."

"Ok, so finally, tell me what this thing is?"

"A small black wood box…"

"A box?"

"…A box that is said to contain the sword the Apostle Peter used to cut off the ear Malchus."

"Wait, why are we stealing that?" She looked at him incredulously.

"Because…while it may have no 'price' it is quite valuable, one of a kind, with great historical significance; and there are more than enough of interested _collectors_."

"How many?"

"A fair few, and all indicating a high payout."

"Good enough for me. What else do you think is down there?" She asked him, as she unrolled the paper to reveal a hard copy of the schematic.

"Plenty of ancient church, and some not so holy, relics, things of legend, used by legends, cursed and blessed alike…but we're not there for any of that; you know the deal, we—"

"—Only get what we came for. Yeah, I know."

"Right. There's going to be some pretty _heavy_ stuff down there, I think it's best if we don't temp God, especially when we're in **his** house."

"No arguments here. When do we go?"

"It'll be dark by nine, but we'll give it until ten-thirty. There's no moon tonight, either, so less chance of being spotted."

"Yeah, we did do a sort of case when we were there today. How long? In and out, I mean."

"We do our stuff right, two minuets to get inside, sixteen getting down to, and finding, the target, and then two out."

"Four minuets of exposure…"

"I know, it's a little high for such a public and well guarded place but it is worth the risk, and at night, with no tourists or moonlight, we're in, we're out; we can do it, no sweat."

"No doubt!" She said confidently as she fell backward, arms outstretched, onto her bed."

Ariel closed the laptop and stood up.

"I'll leave you to prepare, then." He had the laptop in one hand but made a low bow and a sweeping gesture of mock deferment with the other, then made his way to the door, and out of her room, his door closing the link between them.

Black Thorn sat up, swung her legs over the side and laid her face in her palms, with her elbows on her knees. She glanced over to the other corner of the bed. He had left the hard copy of the schematic to look over.

"One of these days I'm gonna have to start planning some of our jobs." She uncoiled it, it having rolled back up of its own accord, and began to study it.

'You know, he didn't say anything about an entrance plan. Maybe with both of us on it, we can put them together and do and even better time…' She thought.

She scrambled over to the nightstand and fumbled around in the drawer for a pad of paper, and having found it, proceeded to check the same drawer for a pen or pencil.

She began to take notes as she poured over the extremely detailed schematic, jotting down good ideas and little things she noticed about door placement, the quickest apparent route and whatever else caught her eye.

---

Ariel closed the door behind him, walked over to the desk and set the laptop down on it. He opened it back up, and turned it back on.

He looked over the desk for a notebook or a pad of paper, but then remember that he had one in his bag.

"I always take one, but just as often forget that I did…" He laughed to himself.

'She must have started making her own entrance plan by now. I guess it's worth letting her try, she's watched me for two years, she just hasn't really ever tried to plan many things until recently, or at least she says she wants to.' He chuckled to himself slightly 'between the two of us we'll come up with something good."

He also always kept a pen with the notebook, he could have gotten one from where he was staying—it being a relatively nice hotel—but he loved this type of pen, it was perfect, but not rare, one of the few times he didn't feel guilt about purchasing something he could have easily stolen; it was worth it.

He sat on the chair at the desk and went over the digital layout, making notes on his own pad of paper as he went.

---

Black Thorn was beginning to loose her concentration. It had already been two hours and she had gone over every detail, looked at every option, and plotted every course she could possibly think of or see.

She was not one to give up easily or lose concentration and focus too soon, but she had exhausted every option on this particular task, and she knew she was done, he thinking capability depleted, for now.

She uncrossed her legs, stretched for a moment and then rolled herself off the bed and effortlessly onto her feet. She stretched out completely and left no knuckle un-cracked and no joint un-popped.

On the dresser near the bed there were four tennis balls, she strolled over to them and picked two of them up with her left hand and two with her right.

"I'll just take a bath now, and relax a little bit before this whole thing goes down." She began to juggle the ones in her left hand, then separately in her right, training her reflexes and making all the mussels in her arms, wrists, and hands, as well as the ligaments and tendons stronger and better.

She tried to switch them over between her hands but they collided and she missed catching them and they all fell to the ground and rolled away just as she reached the bathroom door.

"Damnit. I'll get better at this someday…" she laughed.

---

Ariel put down his pen and shut down the laptop. He leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relaxation. He reached forward and picked up his notebook, a full page was covered in writing; he glanced at it, scanned it front and back for no more than a few small fractions of a second before he folded it twice into a square, and laid it in the ash tray.

He produced a plain; sliver Zippo lighter from his pocket, flipped it open and snapped his fingers over it to light it. He held it near the paper for a moment and it quickly ignited and burned into ash.

He turned in his chair and stood up, reached with his arms for something above his head that was not there, tilted his head pointedly from side to side, and headed for the bathroom.

'I'll take a shower and relax a bit…' He thought, he still had the lighter in his hand and he was flipping it open and closed repeatedly. Bringing it back against his jeans to open the top then forward to spark the flint and light it, then closing the wind guard with his thumb.

He set it on the dresser and opened the bathroom door.

'I don't need a lucky lighter, or lucky 'anything' but I've gone this far with it, why fix what ain't broken?'

Ariel knocked on the door.

"Have you suited up yet?" He yelled through the door

"Yeah, I've been waiting for **you**."

"Ok, so we go in though the side maintenance entrance."

"Yeah, and then take the corridor it's on, right down to the stairs,"

"And then onto the old elevator."

"It's probably going to be somewhere on the left…"

Ariel nearly lost his lunch as the putrid stench washed over him with almost palpable force. Nonetheless, he climbed down the ladder after Black Thorn and began to trot with just behind her down the concrete tube.

"My god. 'We can go through the sewers almost all the way!' What a great fracking idea, Thorn! Just wonderful! This is the last time I ever let you plan **_anything_**!" He yelled at Black Thorn.

"Oh, because hiding out inside that garbage truck in Istanbul was just a **magnificent plan**!" She retorted, but neither stopped their trot down the tunnel.

"A whole **mile** of this! You're lucky it's only ankle deep."

"Lucky we wear boots." She said breathing hard and laughing.

They ran down the sewage tunnel for 20 minuets before they came to a halt where the large tunnel ended and in the middle concrete face of the wall ahead of them was a three-foot diameter pipe with raw sewage flowing out in a small but stead stream.

Ariel grimaced at the pipe, then looked up.

"Than god we don't have to go though that," he said, putting his hands on his hips.

"Definitely… I went down first," she conjectured, indicating the ladder far behind them by pointing backwards "It is definitely you turn."

"Wilco." He sighed, moving towards the ladder in front of him, he began to climb up and Black Thorn followed soon after.

He pushed aside the manhole cover and sprung up onto the grounds, Black Thorn came up moments later and they both dashed across the blacked plaza with the city illuminated in the background all around them.

Once inside, Ariel produced a small aerosol bottle and began to spray himself with it.

"For the smell, it's destroying the particles, breaking them up at the molecular level." He whispered an answer to her quizzical stare "It's government issue, I've got a connection." He added when he saw that she was unsatisfied. He finished quickly and passed the bottle to her.

They ran quickly but with an uncanny lack of sound in their steppes as they went. After racing down two stories worth of stairs they came to a very old elevator with a heavy wrought ion gate and a lever at one side. They boarded and Black Thorn pulled the lever down for the only other floor it could go to.

After a quick descent they pulled the weighty gate aside and stepped out into the catacombs. The air that met them was stale and dry, obviously quite old.

There was only the small light of the 60-year-old bulb in the elevator, and the darkness refused to be penetrated by it more than a few feet. They each broke out a red stick in the soft yellow light, and twisted the top end. The two flares igniting concomitantly brought the range of visible objects out several more feet, giving them ample, if red, light.

They again took to running and followed the main hall, through all it's twists and turns; never stopping to gaze upon ancient relics, long forgotten in the side tunnels. No, their objective was at the end of this long tunnel, they ran as fast as they could.

They came to the end of the tunnel but the wall in front of them was bare rock.

"It's got to be this tunnel off to the left." Ariel said, holding his flare higher.

"Yeah, come on."

Then ran down this hall, but after only a few seconds Ariel stopped.

"This is it," he said confidently, looking at the makeshift shelf which contained a some small trinkets, a small statue of the Virgin Mary, and a black box with a small red insignia on the lock "yeah, no doubts, this is it."

"Good, get it and lets get out of here. I'm not liking the feeling I'm starting to get."

Ariel produced a large black disc, about the size of a coaster and affixed it to the box.

"And you're sure this will work?" Black Thorn asked skeptically.

"Positive, I trust my supplier completely, he says 'they'll work', then they'll work."

He took a few steps back a produced a small black remote, he flipped an arming switch and a small charge could be hard building; at its pinnacle, he pressed the red button. A flash was seen, and lit up the hallway, and the box was gone.

"Wow,"

"Yeah."

Black Thorn had moved forward, towards where the box had been, as if she was checking to make sure her eyes weren't lying to her. She looked it over for a moment and when she seemed satisfied she asked

"Why do you suppose there's a relatively new looking, rather small, statue of the Virgin Mary, all the way down here?" She was reaching out, as if drawn to it, doing it almost without thinking.

"BT, I wouldn't touch it, it's down here for a reason…BT."

"I'm just curious," she said, turning her head towards him as she reached out and grabbed hold of the statue.

There was a bright flash and Black Thorn was thrown backwards into the opposite wall, her flare's light now lessened by the ground.

"Jesus! Black Thorn," He yelled, running over and crouching down beside her "are you alright?" It was a stupid question and he knew it.

She coughed once and sat up, against the wall.

"Yeah, actually." She said, surprise clearly in her voice, while she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand.

"Well, what the hell wa—" Ariel was cut off as he began to convulse violently and let out a scream and fell to the ground.

Black Thorn bounded to her feet and was able make out three men in silhouette, security who had been alerted to their presence by the opening of the manhole cover.

A spark was seen in the darkness, as she realized too late that she was standing in the light of a flare. She felt the impact of two small needles but did not feel the excruciating shock she was expecting to follow.

Instead all she felt was the small prick of the needles but not their imbedding, they had bounced off. Black Thorn didn't feel the need to question a good thing so she charged forward and attacked the stunned men, one of whom managed to fire off another shot from his weapon, but it again bounced off.

She quickly beat them unconscious and ran back to Ariel who was lying face up on the ground, moaning slightly.

"You alright?" She asked, returning the stupid question to him.

"Uh, not really." She helped him too his feet. "Man, those Tazers really pack a wallop."

"I wouldn't know…" she said smiling.

"Let's go." He said, picking up a flare and catching a glimpse of Black Thorn's face before she took off ahead of him.

They ran down the corridor they were in and as they ran Ariel thought

'Were her eyes gray back there? Couldn't be…I'll know soon enough.'

The Present 

"Let's get the _hell_ out of here, shall we?" Black Thorn said, after having turned around, produced a new pair of sunglasses and faced Ariel once again.

"Sure," he said, as they both began to walk out of the vault if only I could remember the incantation that breaks the spell…" He said jokingly, scratching his head.

"I swear to God Ariel, I will kill you."

"No, you won't." He said, barely containing his laughter.

"No," she sighed, and continued through gritted teeth "I will not. _Say it_."

"Only if you ask with less malice in you voice…"

"**Stop right there**!" Demanded Robin.

A/N: Wow, that was without a doubt the absolute _hardest_ chapter to write I have had yet. And the longest too, but it had to be so, it could have been much longer but that would have to be two chapters together. So I leave you with another cliffhanger, but not too big a one I think. Nothing too surprising I hope. Hope you enjoyed.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Is Jayman the only one with love? Come on, you can even tell me story sucks if that's what you think.

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

"Alright team, the 911 call from the security guard told us that we have them in the vault right now," Robin informed his team through the comm. Link in his helmet, as he sped down the street near 100 miles per hour, zigging around the cars then zazging across entire lanes of traffic, doggedly fighting the congestion to reach the bank ahead of his team.

Robin never really spoke of it, nor did the rest of the Titans, but they all thought about it, including him. Through all their fierce battles, hard won victories, and endless chases the other Titans were occasionally reminded that their fearless leader, the one who gave them all their orders, hammered out all their plans, the first to charge into battle; was, in fact, quite human, with no extraordinary abilities or powers, save perhaps for his unstoppable willpower.

He always tried to be the first to a scene they were responding to, even when it posed such a great risk, even to an expert driver; he felt that he had to keep some air of physical superiority to maintain his credibility, and by coupling that with his indomitable will he lead his team, and rarely accepted or admitted defeat.

"How many people are in the bank?" Raven asked from her speedy path with Starfire and Beast Boy, above the city rooftops.

"The guard gave an estimate of 30, but counting the staff that's probably about 45. But we don't really have to worry about that, this is the fourth time we have tracked them so far and they haven't hurt anyone too badly…yet."

"Which is why we're taking no chances, right Robin?" Cyborg added from the T-Car, which was racing down a street parallel to Robin.

"Right. We're going in full throttle, we've got to take them down, today." Robin spotted the entrance to the massive building only a few hundred yards ahead of him and he let his hand off the accelerator.

The building was directly in front of the street he was on ending at the building's cross street.

Robin hit his beaks, hard, when he was only 50 feet from the curb. He leaned slightly and brought the back of the R-Cycle into a slide. The cars going past on the street he was crossing was luckily empty for a few blocks and Robin encountered no additional traffic as he guided the bike up onto the sidewalk, the tires still skidding along, burning a great deal of rubber. The bike came to a stop just in front of the steps, Robin quickly dismounted, removed his helmet and looked up to see three of his teammates swooping down to land next to him, and Cyborg pulling up to a screeching halt and stepping out of the T-Car.

Robin quickly looked over his team then spun on his heals towards the entrance.

"Titans, GO!" He yelled rushing forward towards a solid glass wall, which was shattered just before he reached it by a starbolt. He put his arms up to shield himself as he plunged through the rain of safety glass.

When the Titans burst through the window and began to spread out through the bank, the hostages looked up from their positions on the ground with their hands clasped over their heads.

"Get up, go, quietly." Robin whispered to a small group of people on the floor, kneeling down next to them. The quickly got to their feet and hurriedly, but quietly ran out the building. The other Titans were doing the same with the other hostages and within a minuet the bank was empty, save for the Titans, and their adversaries.

Robin gave a series of hand signals to the team and the silently moved to the hallway that lead to the vault. Lined up in a single line, shoulder to shoulder, they filled the hallway, and they proceeded in near unison with silence and speed.

Robin could see the guard lying on the ground, blood was coming from his head, but he was still breathing, he hit a button on his communicator, which sent a signal to dispatch the police and ambulances to the site of the signal.

A small security camera buzzed almost inaudibly from side to side.

The Titans were a few yards from the corner when two people ran around it, speaking to each other at a level that was inaudible to the Titans. Both groups saw one another and stopped in their tracks, they stared blankly at each other for a moment and then Robin switched back into leader mode, having only lost less than a second.

"**Stop right there**!" He called out furiously, the Titans assumed battle positions as he said this.

The two they had encountered took their own fighting stances. The one known only as Ariel said one last thing to the other, known as Black Thorn before Robin made one final demand.

"Surrender, now. You can't win."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Black Thorn responded.

"Titans, **GO**!" He yelled and the Titans sprang into action, lunging for the criminals they sought to put away.

Robin reached Ariel first and leaped at him with a powerful kick, Ariel stepped to the left, pushing Robin's leg out of his way and then hitting him hard in the stomach, temporarily knocking the wind out of him.

Robin fell to the ground, he saw a small flash of light, like a camera going off, but he recovered and got to his feet after only a few seconds, ready to continue the fight only to be met with frustrated silence.

"They have disappeared." Starfire said, obviously irked.

"Just like every other time." Cyborg added.

"Raven," Robin turned to the half-demon, rubbing his stomach "do you sense any sort of magic involved?"

"Yes, but it's very subtle, I don't think it has anything to do with the disappearance." The Titans had walked outside the bank and were standing in front of their vehicles.

"Alright, take us home, please, Raven." Robin said, wanting to continue the conversation back at the tower.

Black energy enveloped the Titans and their Car as well as Robin's motorcycle and suddenly they were back at the tower, in the main room, and the cars back in the garage on the bottom floor.

"Dude, why can't we just do that every time?" Beast Boy exclaimed, throwing up his arms.

"Because it takes to much of my energy, _I still need to fight_…" Raven answered with a touch of annoyance barely disguised in her voice.

"Cyborg, is there any kind of transportation technology that you know of that could od this?" Robin asked, turning to him.

"Hmm, well, I head stuff about it being developed and tested successfully on things, but it's a military thing, and on things never on _people_."

"Well, the have it. We're pretty sure of that. That's how they have been doing so well, and getting away so easy."

"So what do we do now?" Raven said, putting her hands on her hips in frustration.

"I think I may have a way to track them…" Robin said, almost as if talking to himself "Cyborg, have the Police sent us the security camera footage from the bank yet?"

Cyborg took a few steps over to the computer and sat in the chair in front of it. He began typing and soon found what he was looking for.

"Yeah Robin. They sent them a couple a minuets ago." He brought up the files and got up from the chair to let Robin sit down.

Robin quickly sat at the computer consol and reviewed the material.

"Yes," he said after a few minuets and the team gathered around him " it is definitely some kind of energy transportation device." He pointed to the bright flash as the video kept replaying itself on a loop a few seconds: The two thieves were there, standing in the hallway, then a flash of light at the cores of their bodies and concomitantly, they were gone.

"The bank has infrared sensors, right?" Cyborg asked Robin.

"Yeah, yeah…good one. They do.." Robin began typing again quickly, becoming totally absorbed in his pursuit.

After several minuets of work, and the team standing patiently around Robin, Beast Boy poked up one finger and asked.

"Uh, dude, what are you doing?"

Robin turned around halfway, revealing the screen, then he stood up. His face was expressionless, his form was imposing. Beast Boy began to cower where he stood.

Robin let slip a very faint grin, he then turned to the huge screen on the wall and held up a small remote. What was on the computer screen appeared on its larger counterpart.

"Alright, now…human beings are basically, giant infrared light bulbs. Business use small infrared detectors for security." Robin used the remote to bring up a few more items on the screen.

"But, by picking up light on the infrared spectrum they also pick up other forms of light that are not visible to the eye." He showed the same portion of video from before, now with a red filter.

"And a technology like transportation would give off all kinds of different kinds of energy when it's used" Cyborg added.

"Exactly, and with the unique energy signature given off by this transporter we can analyze it, and search for similar patterns across the city." Robin lifted the remote from his side again and a three dimensional map of the city materialized on the screen.

The map focused down onto the bank and a little, pulsing red dot. Robin had the program analyze the distinct signature and then the map began to zoom out. On the screen a handful of small red dots appeared from the city, scattered about downtown are in no discernible pattern.

"We have too many. We have to narrow the search parameters." Robin walked back over to the computer and while standing, typed in more things and the program ran itself again.

Six of the eight new markers, which had emerged from the city, disappeared from the screen, leaving only the starting point, one in a research facility of a corporation downtown and one in a warehouse by the east side docks.

"Well, we have no idea why the first marker is in the city, in this building," he said, pointing to the building with a laser pointer "but we will look into that as our back up, later, if it comes to it."

Robin used the green laser pointer to isolate the indicator near the docks, the warehouse.

"This is it, there is no rational reason for this indicator to be here other than it's where our criminals are. Get ready guys. We're gonna get 'em this time."

A/N: I didn't want another near 4000 word chapter so I am dividing this and the next one. Hope you enjoyed it.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I don't like to beg, but please leave a review if you have a second, they really give me encouragement. And thanks Jay.

Disclaimer: If I owned Teen Titans, would I have to write FanFics about it? No, but to be perfectly clear, I do not own Teen Titans.

Ariel and Black Thorn appeared a few inches above the ground in their warehouse apartment and staging ground. They fell to their feet side by side, in the same positions that they had been transported in.

Ariel shook his entire body violently.

"Ahhh, I am, _never_ doin' that again!" He exclaimed, rubbing his arms.

Black Thorn rolled her head around to crack her neck and looked at him.

"It isn't all that bad. I've done worse." She said, putting her hands on her hips.

Ariel gave a frustrated sigh, and threw up his hand momentarily. He turned away from Black Thorn and began to slowly walk away.

" 'Whatever you do…don't use them on yourself' that's what he told me. 'For object transport only.' But did I listen? No." He was walked into the kitchen and opened a cabinet, and pulled out a bottle with a dark brown liquid in it, about half way to the top.

He considered the bottle for a moment, his eyes wide. Black Thorn took a few steps forward, her hand slightly raised. He muttered something to himself, and thrust the bottle back into the cabinet.

"No, you're right. The technology really isn't ready for living tissue transport, but it wasn't that bad. We were in a tight spot. We had to use it."

"Yeah, we never could have taken them, not all at once, right in front of us. We'll fight 'em eventually, but today wasn't that day. It's not time for that yet."

"No…" Black Thorn headed towards the hallway where their rooms were. "I'm gonna go take a shower…" She said in a passing fashion.

"Yeah. I take care of lunch."

"Right, thanks."

She walked into her room, removed her armor and placed it on its stand. She then undressed after turning on the shower and got in. She looked closely at the waterproof MP3 and stereo she had imbedded in the wall, trying to decipher the readout of the LCD through the steam of the shower.

She hit the touch panel a few times and extremely loud music began to pulse form the device. This was her favorite way to unwind at least a small measure.

---

Ariel was standing in front of the refrigerator, in a considering pose, obviously contemplating what to pull out and cook. He enjoyed cooking, to him, it was quite relaxing.

---

"Sie zieht sich aus doch nur für Geld, Die Stadt die mich in Atem hält"

Black Thorn sang the words with the song perfectly. The water came from the high volume showerhead in a boiling torrent of steam and pelting beads and mist.

"Sie ist alt und trotzdem schön, Ich kann ihr nicht widerstehen"

---

Ariel pulled a bottle of cooking oil from the cabinet beneath the counter, to the left of the oven and placed it on the black marble counter. He picked up an egg in each hand after sliding a large bowl in front of him. He cracked them perfectly and tossed the recently emptied eggshells—their contents now in the bowl—into the trash, and picked up two more eggs.

---

'I hope he didn't decide to make breakfast…' She thought as a much softer, yet still extremely loud, music played in the over the noise of the shower.

---

He set the whisk down next to the bowl and picked up the milk carton. He turned around, opening the refrigerator door and placed the milk back into its place on the top door shelf.

He stepped back over to the counter, next to the oven.

He twisted open the bottle of cooking oil and poured a generous amount into a large pan on the stovetop. He turned the dial and it lit, he grabbed the bowl with all the eggs in it and dumped them into the frying pan.

---

"Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose," Black Thorn sang. Had there been anyone listening, she would most assuredly not be singing, she never sang in public. She claimed she hated it, and her mind confirmed, but she knew it was simply a fear, one that she chose not to overcome.

She wiped her eyes and then the touch screen of the MP3 player, then selected a new play list to listen to.

---

The eggs were sizzling in the pan when in dropped a myriad of vegetables and meats by his hand, holding a plate.

He stirred the mixture rigorously until it was combined to his liking and turned up the heat.

---

The wind whipped by thunderously, only the helmet protected its wearer's eardrums from the deafening noise.

"My ETA is three minuets. Raven?" Robin activated his communicator and spoke to his teammates.

"Robin, our ETA is two minuets."

---

"I just need this stage to be seen" the freely flowing water was still exceedingly hot. There was a reason they had a gargantuan water heater in the warehouse.

---

Ariel tipped his cupped hand over the large pan, and shook it to loosen the fine dust of the different spices he had put in the eggs.

He moved over to the refrigerator and pulled out the bread. He took four slices and put them in the toaster.

---

"Cyborg, is everything ready?" Robin twisted the throttle on his motorcycle ever further and picked up more speed.

"Yeah, Robin. We've got a complete go on this one. Everything's set up.

---

"I know what I want but I just don't know…" She reached for a bottle of conditioner that was meant to be left in for at least 10 minuets, while you shower.

---

The toast popped, high, out of the toaster and Ariel reacted in the blink of an eye; sliding a plate in between the toaster and the toasted, catching the pieces and setting down the plate.

He threw in four more pieces of bread.

---

"We're here, Robin. Circling above, awaiting your orders." Came Raven's voice through Robin's helmet.

"Roger that, prepare for breach. I'm there in 45 seconds."

"Wilco."

---

"…got outta bed. Dragged a comb across my head." The conditioner bottle was in her hand. She snapped open the top and squirted some into her free hand.

---

'She's still in there. It's baffling.' In many years of working together, Ariel had discovered that Black Thorn used her showers to unwind and relax. They could sometimes last two hours. That is why he made sure to have a colossal water heater.

---

Robin let go of the throttle and brought his bike sideways to stop it. He took off his helmet and opened his regular communicator.

"Titans, plan in place?" Simultaneous confirmation came from the four other Titans.

---

Ariel opened the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of orange juice, then set it on the counter. He turned the knob on the stove near its lowest setting, just keeping the now ready food warm.

---

"…doin' lines, don't do it, don't do it. Inject your soul with liberty…"

---

"**Titans, GO!**"

---

Ariel looked studied the orange juice for a moment, as the carton stood on the counter. He had become lost in thought and that is where his gaze had come to rest.

He was snapped out of his self induced trance when the widow he was next to exploded with green energy, sending the thick safety glass pellets soaring in all directions, a wave of which collided with his now shielding arms. He was pushed back several feet and more than a little stunned when in the 12 foot tall double steel doors they used as their main entrance both buckled violently inward; ripping from their hinges and clanging to the floor with a thunderous clatter.

He recovered himself almost as quickly as the incident began, and before the doors had fell to the floor. He went into a ready stance and much to his horror in streamed at least 20 men from the front doors and another five from the window; all of them armed to the teeth with the latest weaponry, covered from head to toe with the latest body armor, concealing their identities.

'No insignias, no commands, too much tech. They're not cops.' He observed as they began to surround him.

Ariel had only a long dining room table between him and 25 fully armed and apparently well trained men. Sitting on the thick overly thick oak table was a pair of holsters, and in each those holsters there was a Colt .45.

"Surrender or die." The ultimatum came from the man in the middle, who seemed to be the group leader. They had formed a half circle around him, pinning him between the table and the kitchen counter.

"Come on guys, don't you think this is a little extreme? I'm only a day late on the phone bill…" He needed to stall for time; maybe Black Thorn had gotten her ass out of the shower and would give him a much-needed hand.

"I'm not going to tell you again. Surrender or die."

"So I guess you're not from the phone company." 'This is going to be a tough one.'

The commander in the middle began to raise a pistol in his hand as Ariel ran forward and leaped for his guns on the table.

---

"Team report." Robin demanded in frustration.

"All clear in back, coming forward." Beast Boy chimed in over the communicator.

"Left is clear." Came Cyborg.

"As is the right." Starfire put in.

Within a moment all the Titans were in the kitchen/living room/dining room, all gather around Robin.

"There's nobody here. Where are they?" Raven asked.

"Damnit."

A/N: Not really a cliffhanger but more a cousin. I am really happy with how the story is going so far, I have a map, but it is under detailed, so between 60-75 of each chapter is made up as I write so right now, I am pleased; hope you are too. Please review.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Hey, I am getting some hits, so thanks to the people who at least bother to click on my story. Trying a little new notation, it will help this chapter to be less confusing as the setting will change quite frequently. Suggestions, comments, flames? Put 'em in a review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. (These things are stupid and pointless. Are these people really going to come after us? I don't think that this one particular phrase has any legal binding. Whatever.)

The Apartment 

Black Thorn stepped out of the shower after grabbing a towel of the rack on the sliding glass door. The steam swirled around the brightly lit room dampening everything and creating the likeness of an early morning fog.

She reached under the sink and pulled from the cabinet, a hairdryer. She plugged it into the socket and was about to switch it on when an explosion shook the room and she heard the sound of glass being shattered everywhere, including the room right outside the bathroom door.

She froze where she stood, unsure of how to react but positive that making a whole lot of noise herself would not probably help the situation, especially given her current position. She slowly set the hair dryer on the edge of the sink and silently turned towards the door.

She moved quickly across the cold tile of the floor and, with her right hand still clutching her towel, placed one side of her body against the door and gripped the doorknob with her left. She slowly turned the knob, slowly pulling the door open a few inches. She leaned he head over to the small gap and peered outside, into her room.

'Three men, full body armor, heavily armed, came in through the window.' She observed the situation before her. They were searching her room, looking for something.

'There must be more. Ariel! Oh, shit, I don't hear any gunfire, they either can't find him or they already got him.' The three men were still moving cautiously around her room, checking ever corner and under anything that might contain her, or a trap.

They were giving different hand signals indicating to one another. One, the leader of this particular group she assumed, gave an all-clear signal; they lowered their weapons to a ready position and gather together, still weary of any potential danger.

"I gotta take a leak…" She overheard one saying. She quickly shut the door and stood there for a moment, thinking.

On the bathroom counter there were a pair of sunglasses, she quietly ran over to pick them up then slid them over her eyes. The doorknob began to twist; she nearly flew back over to the side where she had been.

The door opened and one of the men walked in, closing it behind him. He walked directly over to the toilet, not noticing the girl in the towel standing close behind him. His hands reached down, he was whistling under his helmet.

Black Thorn kicked the back of his right knee and he fell forward, before he had a chance to se his attacker, react, or do his business; she stripped the helmet from his head with lightning speed letting it fall to the floor, grasped the back of his head with one hand, his chin with the other, and forcefully pulled his head around, breaking his neck.

The lifeless body slumped on its knees and fell over to the right, leaning against the wall.

The towel began to come unwrapped but she managed to grab it in time, twisting it back into place.

'No patches or insignia. They're mercenaries.' She thought, observing the corpse. She only had a few more seconds until the man's partners become suspicious.

She went back to the door, opened it slowly again and looked outside. The two remaining mercenaries were standing tentatively in the middle of the room. She slowly reached her hand out of the crack and grabbed of the set of clothes that were on a small table next to the door. She grabbed them and quickly pulled her arm back inside. Unbeknownst to her, she had caused one of the men so see something in the corner of his eye.

She dropped the towel and quickly put on the light cotton shorts and T-Shirt she used as workout clothes. She heard the footsteps of two men coming towards the door.

'Not ready for a fight, shit, shit, not ready. Oh, damn.' She squared her stance off a few feet from the door.

The door opened after Black Thorn had gone back to her position behind it. The two men waked in, single file. After they were both in the room a few steps, the one in front saw his friend, lying dead on the ground.

"Shit."

Black Thorn fired the tazer-gun she had lifted from the dead man and the two small metal contact needles dug themselves into the lead mans thigh, sending a powerful volt of electricity into him, knocking him backwards. He stumbled into the sink, and fell on it, cracking one of the pipes and sending a small steam of water flowing from the tiny breach. He fell on the ground unconscious.

The second man wheeled around just in time to see Black Thorn's foot connecting with his stomach. He stumbled backward, dropping his gun, the wind knocked out of him.

'How can that little girl hit so hard.' But he barely had time to think before she set upon him with a furious attack. He managed to block a punch and push her several feet back, giving him a moment to recover himself.

They faced each other in fighting stances, ready to finish it. The mercenary pulled a large hunting knife from his boot and waved it menacingly at Black Thorn.

'No honor among thieves.' She thought. He ran towards her, knife arm outstretched. She moved to the right, on the outside of his arm, hitting with her wrist while concomitantly punching him in the kidney. He started to fall down but her grabbed her wrist and pulled her down with him.

They began to grapple on the floor. He was on top of her, bringing down his fist when she rolled herself on her side, his hand smashing into the tile, nearly disintegrating it under the tremendous force.

She brought her knee up as hard as she could, connecting with a spot she was sure the man did not want to be hit; he rolled off of her, temporally stunned. The water sprayed violently around them, he rolled into it, quickly becoming doused by the spray and the puddle around him.

He brought himself back together, and after finding the knife at his feet, seized it and stood up. He glared maliciously at Black Thorn, who had backed herself up against the sink.

"I'm gonna enjoy this." He said menacingly, an evil grin on his face, seeing the look of fear in her eyes.

Her gaze focused, her expression hardened. The fear was gone. "I wouldn't bee so sure of that…" She held up the hairdryer lightly in her right hand. The mercenary looked down, and then looked back up at Black Thorn.

"Wait don—" He was cut off as Black Thorn dropped the electronic appliance into the overflowing sink.

The lights flickered for a moment.

Black Thorn carefully stepped over the smoking body and water, and out into her room. She suited up and got her gear more quickly than she had ever before in her life, and went to her door.

Gunfire erupted from the other side and a stray bullet penetrated her wall, passing only centimeters from her head. She dove to the ground and made a path away from the door on her stomach, her sword scraping along in her left hand.

She got into a crouch and moved with speed to the window, the broken safety glass crunching under her boots. She spotted the ropes the three men had used to gain entry, grabbed hold of one, sat on the widow frame and eased herself over the ledge. She repelled down the two stories of the side of the building to be as quite as possible, not wanting to attract attention.

She hit the ground, and looked around.

Jump City Outskirts 

"Where would she go?" A man in urban fatigues asked Ariel.

He was sitting in a steel chair, his hands held behind his back by a pair of handcuffs. Each ankle was closely bound to a corresponding leg of the chair. His black T-Shirt was wet in some places from perspiration, and blood. His head was hanging down from exhaustion; sweat dripping off his hair and down his face.

He looked up at his interrogator; the man was in shadow, the only source of light in the room above his own head. His vision was blurred, slightly. There were several bruises on his face, and a few small bandages over cuts.

"Disney Land." He responded.

A fist came careening out of the darkness and found its target in his stomach. Ariel coughed exhaled violently, saliva mixed with blood escaping from his mouth. The man who had stepped out of the shadows had only done so for a moment before he returned to his darkness to continue the interrogation.

"Why you palyin' so rough?" He managed to sputter out; he shook his head to clear it.

"That was nothing. Just a taste, a free sample." The man in silhouette and darkness explained.

"And I thought that was the best you could do…"

"You see…we are going to play a little game. I'm going to ask you some questions, and when I don't get answers I like, _you will_ find out about it."

"Sounds like fun. What's the grand prize?"

"A merciful death." The man said, he stepped into the light, revealing himself, a smile on his face.

Ariel looked into his eyes, there was no compassion behind those eyes, no emotion any normal person would have.

"I will remember you." He said with cold determination, glaring into the man's eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure you will…"

The Apartment 

"It looks like there was one hell of a battle here." Cyborg said, putting his hands on his hips.

"Yeah, but where are all the people?" Beast Boy asked while scratching his head.

"That's just it, where _are_ they?" Robin spoke out loud but it seemed as though he was deep in thought.

"There's another room like it, no gun fire but it's pretty messed up." Raven came back into the kitchen.

"Hundreds of shots fired but no casings, no blood; bullet holes but no bullets. Just destruction and rubble." Robin thought aloud.

"What is our next action, Robin?" Starfire floated forward and landed next to Raven.

"Check the whole warehouse, if there is **anything**, call it in. Look for anything that seems out of place."

"You mean more out of place than a trendy apartment hidden in an abandoned warehouse?" Beast Boy said from the back of the group, holding up one finger.

Robin stared at Beast Boy for a moment, his expression darkening slightly. "Just go." At his words the Titans again split up to search the massive building more thoroughly.

The Kitchen, one hour ago 

Ariel hit the end of the table and slid across the top for a few inches until his hand felt the heavy, blued steel and maple grip. His fingers curled around the checkered etching as he continued to slide across the finished redwood surface.

His thumb found the snap, holding the gun in its holster and popped it, sending it forward, and freeing the gun. He again used his thumb, to turn the safety off. He rotated the gun over from its sideways position, took aim at one of the mercenaries, and pulled the trigger.

The solid, 45 caliber slug found its mark in the man's neck, between his armor. In another one tenth of a second six more bullets had found targets among the stomachs, heads, and chests of the assault force.

The magazine was empty.

His left hand shot out and grabbed the edge of the table, snapping his momentum around, bringing him back to the side he started on and flipping the table on it side for cover.

This happened so quickly that the commander of the forces in the center had only just finished releasing the retracted slide of his pistol, priming his weapon; by the time Ariel was under cover. His men falling around him, he backed away several steps and ordered…

"**_Fire!_**"

Bullets began to tear into the table Ariel was hiding behind. But the inches thick hardwood did not give, the bullets chipped away and flattened against surface. Ariel pulled another magazine out of the holster belt, dropped the empty one out of his gun, and replaced it, seating it with the palm of his hand on the bottom. He flipped the side switch and the slide snapped forward.

The hail of gunfire ceased and the clatter of a dozen magazines echoed through the room. Ariel vaulted over the side of the table, leveled and shot three times, sending three men sprawling on the floor.

One man dropped his rifle and drew a tazer-gun from his belt. He fired it into Ariel's back as he broke the arm of a man who had rushed him with a nightstick.

He cringed and fell to his knees, letting out a short yell of pain. The current stopped and he began to stand back up when the mercenary pulled the trigger again, sending another 20000 volts his way.

The commander walked the few feet between him Ariel, a baton in his hand, and hit him in the head, sending him to the floor unconscious.

"Sir, Watkins, and his team are in the bathroom, the girl must have killed them."

"Did you find her?"

"She's gone."

"Clean this place up a bit, standard operating procedure."

"Yes sir."

Jump City Outskirts 

"I have to tell you, you hit pretty hard."

"I do what I can. Now…where'd you hide the money you've taken?"

"I blew it all on Pacman…very addicting."

The man smiled and plunged a knife into Ariel's left thigh.

Somewhere in Jump City 

"Boost, any word over the usual channels?"

"No Thorn, not one bit of chatter about a job like what went down at your place."

"Alright, but if you pick anything up give me a call."

"Sure thing."

"And remember to check the back channels."

"Of course."

She closed the cell phone and continued walking down the crowded sidewalk, in civilian clothes, just another pedestrian.

'I'll find you. Hang on."

A/N: Hope you liked it. Drop me a review.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry about the huge delay, Real Life has got me all caught up and I haven't had much time for this, and if I have any readers left…Thank you for your reviews. I got pretty good feedback on the notation I used in chapter seven, so I will continue using it henceforth. And here you were all thinking (and celebrating) that I was dead. Well, joke's on you.

Disclaimer: As an impending birthday present to myself, I am giving me the Teen Titans… wait, I can't do that, you say, massive lawsuit, you saw? I take it back, I take it all back!

**The Apartment**

Robin crouched down next to the badly splintered table; he was on the left side of it and leaned over to each side to see the damage of both sides. He studied it for a moment, then picked up a shell casing, one of the hundreds littering the floor.

"5.56, the standard caliber for half the armies on the planet, and the standard for just about every assault-rifle wielding thug or mercenary in business." Robin dropped the casing and hit the floor with a small clang, rolling into another few shells and coming to a rest.

"And the table, took quite a beating, looks like most of the shots hit it, man, they sure don't make 'em like this anymore…" Robin felt the battered surface of the table, dozens of lead bullets imbedded within it.

He felt something that seemed out of place and moved over, slightly, to see what he had found. He saw a very broken and very thick piece of glass in the middle of the table, between the wood, which he could only assume was bulletproof.

"They really don't make 'em like this…" He said with a little humor in his voice.

"Make what like 'them' anymore, Robin." Starfire asked, hovering a few inches above the ground before she touched down and walked forward.

"Oh, Star, nothing," Robin said slightly startled by being woken from his transfixion on the table "this table was just prepared for a firefight…bulletproof glass." He added, seeing her confusion and pointing to the shattered, splintered table.

"We didn't find anything, Robin." Cyborg said as he and Raven reentered the room.

"I didn't eith—" Beast Boy had just stepped in when he stopped, he was staring at his feet "I've got something." He bent over, reaching down, and lifted his right foot slightly. He plucked a small, paper card off his shoe and handed it to Robin. "Uh, must have missed it." He laughed.

"Gunz4hire. Mercenaries and bounty hunters. 'You flag 'em we tag 'em.' (464) 383—" Robin read the card for the entire team to hear. He looked up, a small amount of annoyance could be heard in is voice.

"What the hell kind of Mercenaries put out business cards?"

**Jump City** **Outskirts **

Ariel looked to his right and spat a fair about of blood, saliva, and sweet onto the floor, then turned his head back to his 'interrogator'. "So who are you guys? What kind of Mercenaries bring 30 guys with them to get two extraordinary thieves?"

"I'm the Merc, the only real one anyway," the man brought his fist down hard, across Ariel's face "those assholes are just space-filling meat, just put them in sharp uniforms, give them all the same guns" he gave him a left hook in the jaw, Ariel saw a tooth go flying from his mouth "and they look well trained and organized." He brought his open palm fast up against Ariel's forehead, knocking his head back violently. "It's good for business." He added, laying both hands on Ariel's shoulders and bringing his knee into his victim's stomach.

Ariel let out a wheezing gasp of pain, as he was unable to breath for almost a full minuet. He was barely able to keep his head up and it drooped down, his chin close to his chest.

"Now, you gotta tell me, where would the girl go?" The interrogator asked, his had dropping to his side, an old pair of grungy looking pliers in it.

**Somewhere in Jump City**

"50."

"I'm out."

"See it, and raise you 100."

"I'm out."

"Me too."

"I'll see it."

"I'm in."

"Too rich for my blood."

"I call."

"Ha! Read 'em and weep boys." Said a middle-aged, slightly overweight man with a Brooklyn accent, as he fanned out a hand of four aces and a jack.

The other players folded up their cards and threw them in the middle of the table as the winner began to rake in the large pile of poker chips.

Just as he got the chips back to his own pile the door he was sitting with his back to exploded off it's hinges and smashed into his back, sending him flying along with the overturned table.

A figure burst into the room, covered in shadow.

The other three men were stunned. But only for a moment. Beer cans and poker chips, wooden splinters and playing cards flew around the room in a veritable hailstorm. Only aided by the many large fans in the room for the summer heat.

They rose to their feet. Black Thorn burst forth from the shadow into the sole circle of light and the flash of her red armor was the last thing the men remembered seeing. Three seconds later, they were all falling down, save one.

One low mid-level thug at a low-level poker game, in wrong place, at the wrong time. About half way through the interrogation, he made a funny, funny joke involving himself, Black Thorn, a case of tequila, and her sister, in his mind he later filed this as 'the worst mistake of my life'.

Black Thorn walked up the small set of steps from the basement used as a poker room into the back alley.

'Mercenaries hired by a shipping company on the outskirts of town, but the shipping company is just a front. So who owns it?'

The night air was swelteringly hot, and the humidity was compounding it, giving her the feeling of almost being suffocated.

"Fuckin' heat." She muttered as she pulled an overcoat on. It was noticeable, but less conspicuous than red body-armor. She would have just jumped from one roof to the next, but the streets in this part of town were too wide, so she darted out from the alley, into the bright street, dodging and spinning, bobbing and weaving through the heavy, Friday-night traffic, finally doing a flip over a speeding BMW that nearly ran her down. She caught the license plate; she'd get to him later.

Black Thorn shed the coat and threw it away; it stuck the alley wall and crumpled into a pile on the pavement. Sweat beaded down her forehead before she wiped it away with the back of her right, gloved hand.

The suit and armor were all of the lightest possible materials, all intended to 'breath' and disperse heat, or retain it in cold, but the humidity conquered that, and its technological prowess was no match for the simple water in the air.

'I'll take any odds that the owner of shipping company is just another holding company.' She thought as she took out her cell phone and ducked around a corner, into an even darker part of the alley.

She dialed a number and held the phone to her ear. It was ringing, but no one was picking up the other line.

"Come on. Pick up, come on…" She was tapping her foot nervous and impatiently.

"Hello?" A voice came over the line drowsily.

"Boost, thank god, I thought you weren't home—hey wait a minuet, you sound groggy. Were you asleep? On a Friday night, at 11?"

"For your information, there is a very important Science Fiction convention tomorrow and I need to be up early to get in line for the costume contest,"

"Ok, don't really want to know." She leaned back against the cool, dirty brick alley wall. "I need a check on a the owner of a company by the name of Overland Shipping and Freight. As deep as you can go."

"Sure thing, Thorn. I'm already at my computer terminal. Call you back as soon as I've gone in as far as I can go."

"Thanks. I'm gone." She lowered the phone and hit a button, ending the call.

**Jump City Outskirts**

Robin came to a halt in the gravel parking lot of a large warehouse complex; turning off the R-Cycle he removed his helmet and got off the bike.

The T-Car pulled up behind him a moment later and the rest of the Titans climbed out.

"Titans, this place is massive. Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, I want you all to fly around the perimeter, check for anything out of the ordinary, and look for a better place to enter then the front door."

The Titans gave their acknowledgement and went off to fly around the gargantuan complex.

"Yo, Robin. What are we supposed to be doing while they check the place out?" Cyborg asked just as the other Titans were about to leave.

"We, Cyborg, are going to come up with a plan. An attack plan." Robin responded, turning to his cybernetic companion.

Cyborg was about to say something when the front entrance, a large metal garage door desigened to let semi-trucks in and out slid nosily open. Standing at the frame, were two very shocked looking men in what looked to be army-surplus urban fatigues. For a moment, the Titans looked at the men, and the men looked back at them. Concomitantly, Robin shouted

"Titans go!" and the men went for the sub-machineguns slung around their shoulders.

Just as the men got their weapons to waist level a shower of starbolts and energy-clad objects threw them off their feet, sending them flying into the side of a parked truck and leaving them unconscious.

"Ok," Robin said, after walking forward to examine the two men "we don't need to check for an entrance any more." He motioned for the other Titans to regroup and move into the massive building.

"Know I know these guys don't seem to be the sharpest tools in the shed, but let's not underestimate them. Got it?" Robin said just after all the Titans were inside and heading across the large staging area.

"Don't worry, Robin," Beast Boy offered, resting his hand on the wall next to him "we got it cover—" he faltered as his hand pressed into the wall slightly, due to the large, red button, labeled "**Alarm**" that he had rested on.

Red lights began to flash, and a loud siren started to blare. The other lights went off, leaving the flashing red bulbs as their only source of light.

"Beast Boy" Robin said, bathed in darkness. Beast Boy instantly looked over, a meek expression on his face. The red lights flashed again, revealing Robin's smoldering anger, and stark glare at Beast Boy.

Several doors on the scaffolding that encircled the room burst open and in the blinking lights the Titans saw more then a dozen men filing into the room and taking up tactical positions.

The sound of at least 20 weapons being charged snapped the teen superheroes out of their undefended stances, watching the men rush in. They quickly took to a standard formation and steeled themselves for a fight. The red lights continued to flash every few seconds, but the siren was no long on, obviously silenced from somewhere else.

The Titans all looked down at themselves, small red dots were visible on each of them, a lot of them, even in the flashing light, when the laser's owners were in view for only a brief moment.

Robin looked down, then back up, at his team

"This isn't good."

A/N: Ok, it took me forever to write this chapter, it really did, I am sorry if there were any of you who were actively reading this series, now that school is out and I got laid off of my job I will have a little more time to write. I think I will be going on a little hiatusfrom this story as it took me so lon to get out a new chapter and I havea few otherideas I want to pursue. Anyway, give some reviews if you can, I know it's shameless…but they make me happy…


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